1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally adjustable mechanical backrests.
2. General Background
There are numerous devices available for the support and lifting of persons in a bed. These prior devices are generally expensive, cumbersome, and, of necessity to their basic design, permanently affixed to the bed they are attached to.
Although there are numerous mechanical, hydraulic, electric and other bedlift means, the prior art deals almost exclusively with means of raising a bed.
The invention claimed herein utilizes a scissor-jack type of lifting to raise a person on a bed. Scissors-type bed-lifts include Dufour, Fr. Pat. No. 49,856, Gertler Can. Pat. No. 520,169, Burke, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,310,289, Driskill, 2,902,701, and Uhde, 346,246.
The above-mentioned patents share the quality of being permanently attached to the bedframe or are involved in the lifting of the entire bedframe. The claimed invention is a portable device which does not attach to the bedframe and does not become a part thereof. Furthermore, the claimed invention is powered electrically as opposed to the means employed in the cited patents.
Lifting devices which are not a part of the bedframe include Alsobrook, U.S. Pat. No. Re. 26,411 and Swallert, U.S. Pat. No. 3,781,928.
The current device uses an electric motor to power a scissors-type lifting action directly underneath a person in a bed and is easily portable from one bed surface to another. Furthermore, the claimed invention only lifts half of a person's body on a bed or other reclining surface.